Thanks to his sardonic approach and acerbic lyrics, Steve Taylor has been
branded-among other things-a wiseacre John the Baptist, the court jester of
evangelical pop and the bad boy of contemporary Christian music.

"Christian rock gets accused of being preachy, and it probably is,"
explains Taylor, known for songs such as "I Blew Up the Clinic Real Good,"
"Since I Gave Up Hope I Feel a Lot Better," and "This Disco (Used to Be a
Cute Cathedral)," a No. 1 hit on Christian radio. "Taking a satirical
approach subverts that whole preachy thing."

But five years ago, the former youth minister and two-time Grammy nominee
decided he had gone about as far as he could go with his alternative approach
and bid goodbye to gospel.

"This was at the time of all the televangelist scandals, and Christian
labels were trying to reassure the public that their artists were on the
straight and narrow," the Nashville-based singer and songwriter explains.
"They were subtly encouraging their artists to make overtly Christian
records, which made sense on some levels. But I wasn't a televangelist . . .
so I didn't see why I should have to tone down my satire and make more
mainstream gospel records."

So Taylor, who recorded five critically acclaimed Christian pop albums and
one EP from 1983 to 1988, formed a secular alternative rock band called
Chagall Guevara. The band's 1991 self-titled debut on a major rock label
garnered good reviews and college radio airplay, but sales were
disappointing.

"I think it went Double Formica," Taylor jokes.

Now Taylor, 35, has forsaken secular rock 'n' roll and returned to Rock of
Ages territory with his insightfully witty world vision intact. "Squint"
(Warner Alliance), his first solo album since 1988, tackles such topics as
the marketing of Christianity ("Malls and religion/Build the new forts/Jesus
is a franchise/In their food courts," he sings in "The Moshing Floor");
"Smug" punctures Christian rock's self-righteous tendencies; and "Jesus Is
for Losers" is about scrambling up the ladder of fame.

"'Jesus Is for Losers' is sort of a litany of mistakes that I've made,"
admits the singer, who plans to release a long-form video of his new songs in
February and will begin touring in March. "I don't usually write
autobiographical songs, because I don't want to seem like I'm whining, but
I've learned that if you feel you can just sprinkle a little Jesus on top of
your success, you're probably climbing the wrong ladder. One thing I found
out by being in a band, which is supposed to be a democracy, was just how
unbelievably huge my own ego is."

Taylor's return to the gospel fold came about partly because today's
contemporary Christian music buyers are far more receptive to alternative
approaches and partly because his spiritual beliefs kept surfacing in his
songwriting.

"The songs that were coming out all had to do with a Christian world
view," he says.

At times, the singer acknowledges, his humorous irony isn't understood.
"Some listeners didn't get the satire in 'I Blew Up the Clinic Real Good,' "
says Taylor, referring to his song about violence at abortion clinics that
brought him a bit of notoriety in the mid-1980s. "When we were getting ready
to tour Australia, it was in all the newspapers and on the TV shows over
there that this guy was coming whose song told people to blow up abortion
clinics. So, yeah, satire can have its problems sometimes.

"A lot of Christian music can be self-righteous, though, and that can get
pretty wearying, unless you're totally in agreement with those beliefs," he
adds. "That's why I like doing satire.

"But in many ways, I think a whole other element of the American
population has adopted that self-righteous attitude lately," Taylor
observes. "There was a time when Christendom had the market cornered on
sanctimoniousness and smugness, but now the politically correct crowd has
taken that attitude and run with it."